The subject matter of U.S. patent applications: application Ser. No. 09/785,047, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING ALTERNATIVE SYMPTOMSxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,045, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING ENCODING PATIENT DATAxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,043, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING MULTIPLE DIAGNOSTIC MODESxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,046, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING DISEASE TIMELINExe2x80x9d; and application Ser. No. 09/785,044, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING REUSE OF DIAGNOSTIC OBJECTSxe2x80x9d are related to this application.
1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to computerized medical diagnostic systems. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a computerized system for time-based diagnosis of a patient""s medical complaint by use of dynamic data structures.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Health care costs currently represent a significant portion of the United States Gross National Product and are generally rising faster than any other component of the Consumer Price Index. Moreover, usually because of an inability to pay for medical services, many people are deprived of access to even the most basic medical care and information.
Many people delay in obtaining, or are prevented from seeking, medical attention because of cost, time constraints, or inconvenience. If the public had universal, unrestricted, and easy access to medical information, many diseases could be prevented. Likewise, the early detection and treatment of numerous diseases could keep many patients from reaching the advanced stages of illness, the treatment of which is a significant part of the financial burden attributed to our nation""s health care system. It is clear that the United States is facing health-related issues of enormous proportions and that present solutions are not robust.
Previous attempts at tackling the healthcare problem have involved various forms of automation. Some of these attempts have been in the form of a dial-in library of answers to medical questions. Other attempts have targeted providing doctors with computerized aids for use during a patient examination. These methods involve static procedures or algorithms. What is desired is an automated way of providing to a patient medical advice and diagnosis that is quick, efficient and accurate. Such a medical advice system should be modular to allow expansion for new types of medical problems or methods of detection.
Structure-based processing is a method of diagnosing diseases that works by arranging diseases, symptoms, and questions into a set of related disease, symptom, and question structures, such as objects or lists, in such a way that the structures can be processed to generate a dialogue with a patient. Each question to the patient generates one of a set of defined responses, and each response generates one of a set of defined questions. This establishes a dialogue that elicits symptoms from the patient. The symptoms are processed and weighted to rule diseases in or out. The set of ruled-in diseases establishes the diagnosis. A structure-based processing system organizes medical knowledge into formal structures and then executes those structures on a structure engine, such as a list-based engine, to automatically select the next question. The responses to the questions lead to more questions and ultimately to a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising means for repetitively asking questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, wherein the responses establish time varying symptoms, and each established symptom contributes a weight to a disease; means for determining one or more synergistic weights based on the symptoms established over time; means for accumulating established symptom weights and determined synergistic weights as a cumulative weight for the disease; and means for determining whether the cumulative weight for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising a computerized device; a data structure, stored on the computerized device, configured to store values corresponding to time varying symptoms at different times; and a diagnosis program executing on the computerized device, the program being configured to automatically ask questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing time varying symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to a disease, store values corresponding to the established time varying symptoms in the data structure, determine one or more synergistic weights based on the stored values corresponding to the symptoms established over time, accumulate established symptom weights and determined synergistic weights as a cumulative weight for the disease, and determine whether the cumulative weight for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising a) repetitively asking questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing a time varying symptom, the established symptom contributing a weight to at least one disease; b) determining one or more synergistic weights based on the symptom established over time; c) adding the established symptom weight and the synergistic weight(s) to a total score for each applicable disease, wherein the adding is performed in unison for the applicable diseases; and d) determining whether the total score for a particular disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising repetitively asking questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing overlapping symptoms which occur over a time period, each established symptom contributing a weight to a disease; determining one or more synergistic weights based on the overlapping symptoms established over time; accumulating established symptom weights and determined synergistic weights as a cumulative weight for the disease; and determining whether the cumulative weight for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic method, comprising repetitively asking questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, the responses establishing symptom values over a time period, each established symptom contributing a weight to a disease; computing a total symptom value over the time period for a selected established symptom; determining a synergistic weight based on the total symptom value over the time period; accumulating established symptom weights and the determined synergistic weight as a cumulative weight for the disease; and determining whether the cumulative weight for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a method of computerized medical diagnosis, comprising repetitively asking questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, wherein the responses establish a symptom, and the established symptom contributes a weight to a disease; determining if the established symptom is the first significant symptom for the disease; providing a synergistic weight based on the determining; adjusting a disease score for the disease based on the established symptom weight and the synergistic weight; and calculating whether the disease score for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
Another aspect of the invention includes a computerized medical diagnostic system, comprising a computerized device; a data structure, stored on the computerized device, configured to store synergistic weights; and a diagnosis program executing on the computerized device, the program being configured to automatically ask questions over time to elicit responses from a patient, wherein the responses establish a symptom, and the established symptom contributes a weight to a disease selected from a plurality of diseases, determine if the established symptom is the first significant symptom for the disease, provide a one of the synergistic weights based on the determination, adjust a disease score for the disease based on the established symptom weight and the synergistic weight, and calculate whether the disease score for the disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.